Beast (Norseton Wolves #1) Read Free Page A

He wanted her. Wanted to take care of her. She could tell. But, something was holding him back. Whatever it was, they’d get past it—as long as he didn’t make her leave.
    She pushed her arms back into her shirt’s sleeves and pulled the plackets together as she sat on his sofa.
    Moments later, he returned, expression drawn and skin pale. He leaned his back against the door and tipped his head down. His hair fell into a curtain over his eyes and he drummed his fingers against the doorframe.
    Certainly a man like him has had some experience with women, so what’s the issue here?
    “Adam says he’s not sending you away.”
    “I’m glad. I don’t want to be sent away.”
    There went another one of those wild hormone spikes. This one tasted of anxiety and fear. She furrowed her brow.
    “You don’t have to say shit like that. I know you girls are trained to tell us what we want to hear, but you don’t have to waste your breath on me.”
    “Oh.” She pushed her top button through its hole and stared at her lap. “I’m actually not that clever. I’ve never been any good at comebacks or flirting. I tend to—to speak plainly , I guess.”
    He was quiet for so long that she risked a glance up at him.
    He’d turned his head slightly and eyed her through that veil of wild hair. She sighed. The wolf needed grooming. She’d put that on her task list for right after she got her bite and papers: bathe him well, then—she scanned the room around her and what she could see of the kitchen—organize his life. If there were a filing system for weapons, she’d figure it out and implement it.
    “You the quartermaster?” she asked.
    “Yeah. Most of the guns belong to the other guys. I can’t see worth a shit to shoot anymore. I used to be a two-eye shooter, and my blind eye was my dominant one. Need more range time to adjust for it.”
    The injury must have been recent.
    She pulled her feet up beneath her on the sofa and licked her dry lips. Keep him talking . She patted around in her head for conversational tidbits. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she was no good at flirting. Some of the girls she knew would have foregone the flirting altogether and just taken their clothes off. Well, she’d already tried that. Obviously, her mate—
    Wait, what’s his name, again?
    She thunked her palm against her forehead. Duh.
    “I’m Christina,” she said. “Christina Stilton.”
    He straightened up a bit at that, so he seemed to be looking down at her now. Of course, from his height, he’d always be looking down at her. He’d probably have to hunch just to put his arms around her. The wolves were shorter where she came from.
    “Anton Denis.”
    Anton. His packmate had called him “Beast.” That wouldn’t be happening anymore. Not on her watch. There was nothing beastly about him, as far as she could tell. She was usually pretty good at reading temperaments, if not intents.
    “So, where are you from, Anton?”
    He scoffed. “Everywhere, lately. Adam splintered us from a group that got too big, just before we were going to be expelled, and we haven’t stopped moving since.”
    Typical . Packs always sent the strong boys away before they could become threats to the alphas and betas. Stupid practice . It left the packs unbalanced with a few strong wolves, a bunch of weak males, and—well, a bunch of girls and women. “How old were you?”
    One of her brothers had left at sixteen. She hadn’t heard from him since, and he’d left ten years ago.
    “Fifteen, I think. But Adam is my uncle through marriage, so it’s not like I got tossed out with a stranger.” He crooked his thumb in the general direction of Alpha’s house. “My aunt lives with him.”
    “Oh. That’s reassuring. Knowing there’s an experienced woman here.”
    He grunted, and that curtain of hair fell over his face again. She wanted to go over there and tuck it all behind his years so she could get a good look at that handsome, scarred